Sadly, Sony is like the once cool high school student that never grows up. 10 years after graduation and is still crashing HS parties and thinking he is the cool one, while most see him as the old guy who no one really knows or likes.

A PS3 price cut will be a little late to the party, it will give it some momentum but for how long is the question. Everyone knows that M$ will not go out peacefully and will fight this to the bitter end. It will be fun to see how everything plays out and I have my popcorn ready. I hope the PS3 actually does do a little better after the cut, how could it not?

price-cuts can have a massive effect on sales. look at last year; PS3 was beating the 360 weekly but the 360 price-cut turned the tables.

besides i dont think sony is too worried; the 360 is only outselling the ps3 by around 10k a week which is nothing considering the fact that the ps3 is twice the price

Well it will definitely help out in the gross sales numbers, but since it will still be the most expensive console I think it won't change the fact that it's in third place (obviously it will beat 360 right after the pricecut, but in a month I think it will be back behind 360).

It's important to note that the potential customer will become increasingly more casual because hardcore gamers will already have one or more current gen syatems. This does benefit the cheapest (360) and hyped (Wii) systems.

Another thing is that more and more the focus will be on online gaming and in the most important market (US) much more people have a 360. If you want to game with your friends you'll need a 360 as well, despite missing on some awesome exclusives.

Increased sales will probably lead to more confidence of devs and publishers, which is extremely important.

It would help in a very bad way for Sony in terms of finances. The extra few million PS3 consoles would generate an extra 1.5 billion dollars in losses  on PS3 hardware alone if Sony sold PS3 at  an additional $100 loss.

Expected year sales if PS3 price cut was reduced by $100 generating $100 loss on PS3 assuming they are at breakeven position on PS3 consoles sold.
15 million consoles sold at $100 loss = 1.5 billion dollars in PS3 hardware sales.
Or sell 10 to 11 million PS3 consoles in the same period (one year) at break even and make no losses on hardware for the year.

It would take Sony a year or two to reduce costs to be able to get to a break even or profit making position on PS3 consoles loss.

It is better to cut or minimise your losses than try and build a huge hole that you may never recover from. Sony is losing money not just in its game division but all other business areas at the moment and to make an extra billion dollars or 1.5 billion loss just on PS3 console would be finacial ruin for the company. A lot of other companies are making losses in the world due to the Doomsday state of affairs of the world economy which has never been this and is ven doig worse than the Great Depression according to some analysts.

Shareholders are not happy with Sony at the moment due to falling share prices and no dividend payouts. Sony corporate fat cats still get their bonuses just like all the other huge corporations even in bad times or the company is stuffed up by the ones in charge of running the company. No dividends are paid to shareholders if losses are made in that finacial period.

It is important for a company not to upset investors. Shareholder backlash can result in the company losing more money and the share price continues to fall. Share price is directly related to value of the company and its profits are critical for the company. Losses for a company are always bad for the company.

Sony has to couple the ps3 price cut with exclusive titles. They should cut the price right when a super hyped title comes out (god of war/ gt/ final fantasy). Once that happens, they should continue releasing first party titles to saturate the market, in a sense. Right now there just aren't enough defining games to make the ps3 look too different from the xbox

it will change 3 things :
end the hope of the psboys
increase ps3 sales marginally
even more lulz for me

I doubt a price cut will happen even if everyone and their mother is clamoring for it. A 50$ one would have a minimal impact and a 100$ would be too much of a blow to Sony finances, which are already quite down, as we all know.

I believe Sony will keep the PS3 at 399$ and reduce the price when they are able to launch a Slim model at the end of this calendar year, at the earliest.

The price cut would be a retarded move on sony's part anyway except they've been lying about their finances. Any losses they plan on incurring should be spent on those of us who already took the plunge and making better plans for next gen. They're better off keeping the $399 price tag throughout the year.

Only japan deserves a price cut since the currency fluctuation isn't really affecting their business there and sony would be able to lead in one region since the wii seems to have applied it's brakes. If sony generates more interest in Japan and supports small JP dev ps3 projects, they could even see extra success beyond the island without applying any price cuts.

They could also fight off inroads M$ has made in Japan, if they went that route.   I agree it would be a retarded move on Sony's part to cut the price by so much when they are in the red in pretty much every division they do buisness.

all i have to say is wat one of my fellow ps3 fans said

Leo-J

"A 300$ PS3 can turn this gen around"